Lost in Transition

Financial markets and the news media have one thing in common: they tend to oscillate rapidly between hype and gloom. Nowhere is this more apparent than in analyses of emerging economies’ prospects. In the last few months, enthusiasm about these countries’ post-2008 economic resilience and growth potential has given way to bleak forecasts, with economists like Ricardo Hausmann declaring that “the emerging-market party” is coming to an end.

Many now believe that the recent broad-based growth slowdown in emerging economies is not cyclical, but a reflection of underlying structural flaws. That interpretation contradicts those (including me) who, not long ago, were anticipating a switchover in the engines of the global economy, with autonomous sources of growth in emerging and developing economies compensating for the drag of struggling advanced economies.